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Fried Whole Potatoes

Whole potatoes are boiled, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried in lard and sprinkled with coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fried Whole Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel, steam, or boil the white potatoes until nearly done.

  2. Remove from heat and drain.

Coat and fry

  1. Beat the egg and dip the whole potatoes into it, then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Drop the potatoes into boiling lard and fry until browned.

  3. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White potatoes
Provide the starchy interior that turns soft and fluffy when cooked through.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the potato surface so the coating stays on during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that browns in the hot fat.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Parcook the potatoes until nearly done. Frying mainly browns the outside, so the interior must be almost cooked before coating. Potatoes that are underdone stay firm in the centre, while overcooked ones may break apart when dipped and fried.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, bread):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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